ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

I’m just not seeing what the rest of the world is seeing. This is an unserious movie as far as I'm concerned. I sincerely mean this when I say that I hate to be the guy that dislikes the movie that everyone seems to love but One Battle After Another was, as the young kids say, problematic. It just weirdly panders to certain specific types of people (performative liberals) and it uses current events (the migrant deportation crisis) in a very cheap way to do the pandering. But it’s ok because people like to be pandered to today now more than ever. Everyone seems to be in a bubble or an echo chamber. There’s no real discourse. No nuance or middle ground. People only want to be agreed with and if they see someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum express an opinion or even a fact they don’t like, they have to disingenuously disagree like a stubborn toddler.

Speaking of no more nuance or middle ground - I’m almost certain that because I don’t love this film and have criticisms of my community that I’ll be labeled a “coon” (a term that has lost all of it’s sting), a sellout or just out of touch. As you read on you’ll see that I have absolutely no love for conservatives but because of this critique, folks will associate me with conservatism or MAGA.
I never thought I’d say this but I’m feeling like Armond White after watching OBAA. White represents a type of Black conservative that I detest but when it comes to expressing interesting thoughts about film - there’s no one like him.

One Battle After Another is a movie made for modern Twitter liberals, unfunny Black Twitter pundits that think surface-level representation is more important than meaningful messages, folks that call Joe Biden & Kamala Harris “uncle Joe” and “auntie Kamala” and emotional college students that think they’re making a difference by debating stupid conservatives on college campuses (you aren’t making a difference. You’re just making yourself look dumb by arguing with racists using your performative feelings).

Conservatives will watch this movie and immediately get that they’re being targeted. Sean Penn’s “General Lockjaw” clearly represents a cartoonish iteration of MAGA. There’s literally a subplot (which kind of turns in to the main plot) involving a secret society of American White Nationalists that believe in racial purity. When it comes to the white characters in this movie it’s pretty straight forward and surprisingly interesting. When it comes to the Black characters, Paul Thomas Anderson treats them like caricatures.
The conservative analysis of this film will be nothing surprising. They’re always so predictable. The only critique they ever seem to have these days is “this movie made me feel bad as a straight white man”. I dunno - if a movie like Sinners or even OBAA made you feel like you’re being attacked as a white man, maybe you need to stop being so weak and not let a movie hurt your feelings. But that’s just my opinion.

Folks on the opposite side of conservatism (liberals, “the left”, democrats, etc) will watch One Battle After Another and feel validated and seen. They’ll praise the (cartoonish surface-level) representation of Black women in the movie like it’s something daring (it’s not). A lot of times white liberals can be clueless about their relationships with Black people and that comes out in One Battle After Another.
A White liberals will have “BLM” in their Twitter bio, wear a thrift store Nelson Mandela t-shirt but won’t have any actual Black friends. Furthermore - they sometimes think they know what’s better for Black people than Black people themselves. They get comfortable and insert themselves in certain Black business that doesn’t concern them. They really do sometimes see us as props. One Battle After Another just confirms this.

Besides Regina hall, I thought the Black women in the movie were used as sexual fetish props. There’s a scene in the film where a group of Black revolutionary women rob a bank and one of them starts to give a speech about Black pussy and the power of it. …Just rob the bank, please.
But lemme guess - as a man, even a Black man, I just don’t get how empowering this is supposed to be, huh? A non-Black person with blue hair and a septum nose ring will see that scene and call it “iconic” or something.
But this all makes sense. Of course a white filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson would be responsible for a forced scene involving a Black woman preaching about Black pussy in the middle of committing a bank robbery. The crowd that this movie is for is the same crowd that thinks getting Megan Thee Stallion to twerk for Kamala Harris will secure votes. These are the same people that think getting strippers to promote voting will secure the Black male vote because all we think about pussy.

Teyana Taylor’s entire performance was a one-note scowling jezebel stereotype. I know folks are going to describe her performance as a “strong Black woman” but in reality it was just “I’m mad but I’m also horny, white boy!” Let’s also not forget she ratted out her fellow revolutionaries (which led to most of them being murdered) proving she wasn’t really about that life. She also abandoned her child. But again - certain liberal white folks will cheer that on and call it empowering because, again, so many of them see Black people as props for their weirdo agendas. Being a mother is stifling and depressing but being a promiscuous informant that sleeps with the police (who I thought was supposed to be the enemy) is empowering and free (I'm sorry but while Teyona's character was obviously "complicated", she was still shown as a protagonist at the end of the day). 

Black folks are the only people that have their degeneracy cheered on by non-Black people as something empowering or strong. I’m also starting to get sick and tired of the strong and/or independent stereotype that has been forced on Black people in media and in real life (Black women especially). It would be nice if we were allowed to be light and silly in movies more often like we sometimes very much are. But that’s another conversation bigger than One Battle After Another.

What I thought was supposed to be a father/daughter movie about how living the revolutionary lifestyle can often times leave you with nothing to show for later in life, turned in to something else. At the end of the day the climax was about a white supremacist (Sean Penn’s General Lockjaw) joining a super powerful secret society of white supremacists that has an illegitimate black daughter that he has to kill before his fellow white supremacists find out and kick him out of the club. If that's what you're in to then cool. I guess I'm just not.

Leonardo DiCaprio was quite good and the final car chase scene was pretty great. But one sequence and a good performance doesn’t save a movie like this.
The sitcom-style ending is enough to make a logical person lose their mind. *MILD SPOILERS* DiCaprio’s daughter in the film saw how living the revolutionary life left her parents traumatized & depressed yet she still decides to follow in their footsteps?? I just don’t buy that.


I know I’m in the minority on this and some of my words sound harsh but if you can get out of your feelings maybe you can at least see where I’m coming from (notice I didn’t say you have to agree with me).